Long Way From Home

November 19, 2012

Over four years since recording started Long Way From Home is now available for digital download from CD Baby. The album that didn't want to be made has arrived. The first sessions began at the end of summer in 2008 with Mark 'pookie bear' Schwarz on bass and Bill Concello on drums and yielded Maybe I'll Know You, Solitude, Icebreakin', Ballad of the Bumbling Pygmies (featuring the pygmies themselves), John Hardy (with Sparky on accordion) and Too Many Holes (with Jin Nagami on lap steel). Bill engineered the album and also added keys and FX.

By the early part of 2009 the plug was pulled halfway through. When 2012 arrived and everyone was going on about The Year of the Dragon (Chinese astrology) it was a cue to finally move forward again. The new band warmed up with a handful of shows at Crawfish in Akasaka-mitsuke. Recordings from Crawfish yielded Movie Queen and the CD bonus track Hucklebuck. Taking Hisa Nakase (bass) and Masaki Shibata (drums) into the studio we nailed Talk To Your Daughter, Sleep Walk (yes, the classic ballad) and another CD bonus track, Deadbeat Blues as well as alternate takes of Cutie Pie (with Manuel Trillo on drums) and Ain't Waitin' Anymore. Hugh Ashton engineered and co-produced the session for Cutie Pie with Daniel Karras on drums and the final session got down Ain't Waitin' Anymore with Yo Tsuneno on bass and Glenn Rios on drums.

Jin Nagami mastered it at Orange Studio with my lovely niece Miya Kobayashi on hand and it was done. And now it's available to the public at last! Oliver Richter shot the video for Maybe I'll Know You starring Tara Tinsley and Ryan Toth and a second video for Cutie Pie is underway.